realy bad ethics from a big company

Imagine Cruising Holiday AJ and EMH Pearson , K. Forbes 16.10.2019 Ref IMG C2DD585FA Cruise line ref ***6 To whom it may concern 1. We have just returned from what will be our last overseas holiday before retirement and in celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary and although we had a wonderful time in many ways, we had several days ruined by the stress of Imagine Cruises inefficiency. My husband and our friend, Keith Forbes, came to your offices to book for a special offer //Cape Town..Venice..Cruise..Venice ..Cape town , for R24,999.00 each. However they were persuaded to choose a more expensive cruise including Mykonos, which was OK , except neither of them remember your agent mentioning that the Mykonos stopover would only be a few hours and at night time. We are old! We normally sleep from 10pm!!. However, our first real problem with Imagine Cruising emerged when we needed to know our flights so that we could book flights from Venice to Naples//We had stated from the beginning that we were going to spend a few days in Positano before linking up again with the Imagine schedule in Venice//We waited so long that instead of being able to get a cheaper Easy jet flight, we had instead to settle for a far more expensive Alitalia flight which also stopped in Rome//longer waiting time and way more expensive. We had a wonderful time in Positano, arranged our own ferry shuttle to Hotel Scandinavia in Venice and all went well till we came to leave. At the last minute we discovered that although we had emails confirming your shuttle would fetch all 3 of us at 11am,, only Mr Forbes had a voucher and that was for 1, and not 3. We travelled using cell phones on Wi Fi only, so communication was difficult. We tried unsuccessfully to contact your offices , and in desperation asked our son in Cape Town to contact you. He eventually got hold of someone on an emergency basis//cell ph no ***, who said he would sort out and book all 3 of us for a 1.30pm pick up and cancel the earlier one.. As it turned out, the 11am shuttle arrived after all, but only for Mr Forbes. By this time we were all extremely stressed and had no faith at all in the later shuttle arriving, so we asked to be included in the 11am pick up.. And for an additional E50.00 on a back pocket system//no receipt of course,!, that was done, and we arrived in time for the cruise. We really enjoyed the cruise, except for the very short stop at Mykonos, but unfortunately fog prevented MSC Simfonia from docking until 5 hours later than scheduled at Venice. We phoned from the boat to warn your shuttle service of the delay. They said, no problem, they would be there, and of course, they were not there!. With looking for them and then desperately trying to find an available taxi ourselves we arrived at Marco Polo airport only 10 minutes before take-off, and check in was already closed. Needless to say we got no receipt for this taxi either, there was just no time and we were panicked. We will never know if we would have still made that flight, had your shuttle arrived. We had to organise accommodation for the night and taxis to transport us to and from the hotel. Emerites airline was incredibly helpful, and transferred us to the same flights, but on the following day at no extra charge. We again called on our son to help us with the BA flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town/ I include his notes on his dealings with British Airways. Bottom line is we had to pay R1315.00 penalty each. Our other huge problem with Imagine Cruising was when Mr Forbes went to get his Shengen visa, we realised that we had in fact been booked on return flights to C.Town, Before we even arrived back in Venice from the cruise .You then had to change our flights and said there was no Emiratea flight available direct from Dubai , so we had to settle for the BA flight and a stopover in Johannesburg, which we did not want in the first place, but seemed to have no choice. We arrived back absolutely exhausted, a day late for work, for which I loose pay and we incurred added expenses all round. We are totally unimpressed with Imagine Cruising, and will never recommend you to any of our friends. Yours faithfully Mr A.J. Pearson / Mrs E.M.H.Pearson

Sunday, 12 January 2020 8:51 PM Dear Sandy, Because of Xmas and work commitments, we have also now taken a while to reply. We have also consulted with consumer consultant, Wendy Knowler, as we really did not know what to do, especially as we did not hear from you. I attach her reply and also our reply to her detailing our additional expenses because of the problems , and we realise that those expenses , in fact , are more than your offer to us, and because of excesses in our policies, and the fact that we were too stressed to get proof of payment for one of the taxis, and the shuttle to the boat was a back pocket arrangement and therefore, also no receipt, so it is hardly worth our while to claim. We would love to use a cruise voucher from you, but this last holiday was the last that we will be able to afford, as I stop work later this year. For that reason also, the disappointment bites deeper. We would not be able to use any voucher you could offer, but thank you. Regards , 06 February 2020 5:13 Good day It is now another 3 weeks since we resent our e-mail to you, We are very reasonable people but this is trying our patience ,if we haven’t heard within the next 7 days (4th March 2020) we have no choice but to go to the media and explain to them our woes with your company. Regards Pearson and Forbes